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A Mercury spacecraft named by the US astronaut Alan Shepard, who flew it in May 1961 on its sub-orbital flight and became the first US human in space. The flight was officially designated as MR-3, with MR-2 carrying the chimpanzee Ham into space in January 1961.

Freedom 7 began a Mercury naming tradition of including the number of the ‘Original Seven’ astronauts. Freedom was also an early name for the International Space Station.